Only 6 sportsmen have ever medalled at both Winter & Summer Olympics… Could Quinn Simmons be the 7th? “I want to set my sights on the 2034 Winter Games in Utah”
Cycling
In a sport increasingly shaped by marginal gains and rigid career planning, Lidl-Trek's Quinn Simmons is openly entertaining an ambition that sits well outside the modern cycling playbook.
The American has made it clear that his Olympic horizon extends beyond the road. While Los Angeles 2028 represents a potential Summer Games target during the heart of his cycling career, Simmons is already looking further ahead to a far rarer goal.
“First I want to experience the Summer Games,” Simmons told Sporza, referring to Los Angeles. “After that, I want to set my sights on the 2034 Winter Games in Utah.”
It is a statement that immediately places Simmons in an almost empty historical space.
A club so exclusive it has only six members
Olympic history underlines just how extraordinary that ambition is. Only six athletes have ever won medals at both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games.
That list consists of Eddie Eagan, still the only person to win gold at both editions; Norwegian multi-sport athlete Jacob Tullin Thams; East German speed skater turned track cyclist Christa Luding-Rothenburger, who achieved the feat in the same year; Canadian endurance specialist Clara Hughes; American sprinter-turned-bobsledder Lauryn Williams; and Steven Holcomb, who crossed from athletics into bobsleigh.
None of them made the leap from road cycling into an alpine endurance discipline. That is the gap Simmons is proposing to bridge.
Simmons is one of the most easily identifiable riders in the whole World Tour
From alpine youth prospect to WorldTour professional
What gives Simmons’ words weight is that ski mountaineering is not a novelty or a marketing hook in his story. Before he ever raced professionally on the road, it was his first elite sport.
Growing up in Colorado, Simmons competed at youth world level in ski mountaineering, a discipline that combines sustained uphill climbing on skis with technically demanding descents. The physical profile required is brutal and highly specific, but it helped shape the aerobic engine and resilience that later defined his rapid rise in cycling.
After switching sports, Simmons wasted little time. A junior world title accelerated him straight into the professional ranks, bypassing the long development curve most riders follow. Yet despite committing fully to cycling, he has never fully cut ties with the sport he came from.
Why Utah 2034 is not idle talk
Crucially, Simmons is not framing his Olympic ambition as a short-term crossover. The sequencing matters. Los Angeles 2028 fits squarely within his prime years as a professional cyclist. Utah 2034, by contrast, sits at the far end of a long elite career, offering space for a late pivot rather than a mid-career gamble.
Ski mountaineering’s recent inclusion on the Olympic programme only sharpens that focus. By naming a specific Games and a specific discipline, Simmons has removed much of the ambiguity that often surrounds Olympic crossover talk.
Whether he ever reaches that start line remains uncertain. Olympic history suggests the odds are stacked heavily against him. But by stating the goal so plainly, Simmons has already placed himself in a conversation that almost no active cyclist can credibly enter.
If he ever does succeed, he would not just become the seventh member of an exclusive Olympic club. He would be the first to take an entirely new path into it.
Kieran WoodDeputy Editor-in-Chief
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He regularly contributes to DartsNews.com and CyclingUpToDate.com, where he covers professional cycling and darts. In cycling, his work includes liveblogs from major races, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España, alongside race reports and analysis. He has also conducted interviews with professional riders.
His reporting spans the full racing calendar, from one-day classics to stage races, with a focus on accurate, real-time coverage and clear contextual analysis. For statistics, results, and historical context, he regularly uses resources such as ProCyclingStats. To support reporting on rider activity and training context where relevant, he also references Strava.
In his work, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles as new, verified information becomes available.
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- many people advise him to grow slowly and rather do giro and/or vuelta instead of tdf. but i can totally understand that he is not satisfied with taking over once pogi declines, but instead beat him in his prime. so if he goes for tdf again, i‘m all for it. let‘s hope that pogi recovers soon!Ketterechts07-11-2026
- So gracious to offer something no-one would be prepared to pay for. The Giro is not the Tour and doesn’t command the same interest or attract the same “elite” (those willing to pay to be a part of something they consider has ego boosting potential). Roadside viewing will always largely remain free for everyone outside circuits. Introduction of a symbolic entrance to mountain climbs is worthy of exploration. Asking 1-2€ isn’t going to repulse real fans (most will spend 50-100€ on their outing that day all things included) but will prevent a portion of the total knobhead thrillseekers who will join in any large gathering as long as it’s free, just because they’re attracted to crowds, without which it it difficult for them to work up their anti-social behaviour.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- How is radio going to help when someone went over a cliff or bridge or off the roadside into a forest unnoticed and is laying there unconscious?Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- Yep, next we’ll be accusing F1 drivers of avoiding Le Mans.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- But on what is that opinion based? Are you holding him to a different standard than others? Are you saying he should do learn to like something he doesn’t Are you saying he hasn’t achieved enough Are you saying he pretends to be better than his results? It’s actually a really strange opinion to oust if you consider it objectively or rationally. Try applying it to others or yourself by asking if not EVERYONE should then be doing more? Nobody in athletics or swimming gets criticism for not expanding their repertoire when a rival or someone else does. In fact, most who move to another event get accused of running from their rival. Opinions are boring, the reasons behind them are what count.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- for a medical chief to throw things like is just bad. There are already radios which were banned for spectacle. allow radios. Gps trackers are not a complete solutionabstractengineer07-11-2026
- Yeah man...PogiSloFans07-11-2026
- any rider less than 25 whether they are really ready for the position of leadership of GT is probably not the case. I think Pogi himself suffered when he was defeated by Jonas in the TDF twice. But that would be the team's job to ensure support so that they can bounce back. It requires a team and time to get back up and win after getting knocked down.abstractengineer07-11-2026
- I'm very glad he got the big late Quickstep Vuelta win and I hope he has a few left for Euskaltel-Euskadi.flyer07-11-2026
- My memories of Ivan Basso aren't good but I liked his sister Elisa ok.flyer07-11-2026
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